


Long Gone

by ectoviolet



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, Loss, donald & della have both gone mysteriously missing, elvira raises the triplets au, sometimes cousin gladdy babysits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13110018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoviolet/pseuds/ectoviolet
Summary: “It’s no good to them. Your cousins are gone, and their Uncle has made it quite clear he doesn’t want any part of the boys’ lives.” Elvira sighed heavily. “You’re only setting them up for disappointment.”With a painful past weighing on her shoulders, an old woman struggles to raise her great-grandsons right, and keep them from harm.





	Long Gone

“I wish you wouldn’t fill their heads with that nonsense,” Elvira said briskly, her back turned to her grandson as she stirred the pot sitting on the stove. “Could you chop the vegetables for the salad, dear?” 

Gladstone nodded, though she couldn’t see him, and took the washed carrots from the sink. “It’s not hurting them. Besides, it isn’t nonsense, it’s all true.” He took a knife from the drawer and began chopping, trying to remain indifferent. 

“True or not, I don’t like it.” She hovered over his shoulder, watching him chop, then nodded and moved away. “It’s no good to them. Your cousins are gone, and their Uncle has made it quite clear he doesn’t want any part of the boys’ lives.” Elvira sighed heavily. “You’re only setting them up for disappointment.” 

Gladstone tenses. “Don’t they deserve to know what happened?” 

“They shouldn’t be forced to face that tragedy. Please, Gladdy, just let the past be.” 

The pain in her voice is what convinces him. “I will, Gran. I’m sorry.” He only wishes the past would return the favour.

///

Elvira Duck knows loss well. At her age, being widowed should be no shock. Many dear friends are lost to time and age. But there is something cruel, she thinks, about the world that has taken her children. 

Daphne, her charming, beautiful daughter, had always been a transient thing--flighty, a bit less grounded than Elvira would have liked her to be. In some ways, despite her good fortune, her death was not a shock. Earthly pleasures, perhaps, could not hold her any longer, perhaps she had been taken by the desire for something a bit grander, and been granted it as soon as she had the thought. Quackmore was solid. Ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, yes, but he kept his feet on the ground when his sister could not. His wants were simple things: a house, a wife, a son. He never seemed to desire any more than what he had, never seemed to lack. He had visited with his family a week before the accident, and he was the happiest Elvira had ever seen him. Her children left behind grandchildren, and her grandchildren left behind great-grandchildren. 

Elvira knows loss like she knows herself, it lives in every room of her house, every photograph, every keepsake. It lives in her surviving grandsons. It lives in her, buried as deep within herself as she can manage. She knows she cannot keep it from her three boys, she cannot protect them from the thing that plagues their family’s past, but she will shield them from it as long as she can. 

///

“Grandma, how come Uncle Scrooge never visits?” Dewey tugged at her skirt.

“And why doesn’t he send birthday cards?” asked Huey.

“Or Christmas cards?” Louie hung onto his brother’s shirt. 

Elvira was elbow-deep in what was soon to be a loaf of bread. She stopped kneading, for a few moments. Continued. “He isn’t much of a family man,” she said slowly. “When his sisters died, he became very... sad.” 

“Maybe we could cheer him up,” Huey offered. “Maybe we could send  _ him  _ a card.” 

“I…” Elvira trailed off. She couldn’t in good conscience forbid them of making a kind gesture to an old man. “I think that’s… a lovely idea. Why don’t you all get out your pens and paper and make him one?” 

Her great-grandsons grinned at one another, bounded off to their bedroom, chattering away. 

“What should we write on it?” 

“...Happy Birthday?” 

“It’s not his birthday, Dewey.” 

“Well, we don’t know  _ when  _ his birthday is. It could be today.” 

Elvira pounded at the dough with the heels of her hands. She knew his birthday, she remembered the birthday of every member of the family. Hortense had been dear to her, and Scrooge had been dear to Hortense. And of course, her darlings, her twins, had loved him. Too much. She dropped her dough ball into a bowl and covered it with a towel. The same wouldn’t happen to the triplets. Elvira wouldn’t let that awful man take them away. 

“Gran, where’s the glitter glue?” Louie’s voice called from the bedroom. 

“Wherever you left it. I haven’t touched your art set.” She set the dough aside to rise and wiped her hands on her apron. She glanced around the kitchen, under the table. Her back stiffened when she bent over. 

“Found it!” Dewey cried out. “Never mind, Grandma.” 

She leaned her elbows on the table, breathing deeply. “Wonderful.” Slowly, achingly, she raised herself to a stand again, wincing. “Don’t make too much of a mess, boys. You’ll have to wash up for dinner in an hour.” 

“Yes, Gran!” came the three-part chorus. 

She wondered whether she should mail the card.

///

“What’s this, little cuz?” Gladstone picked the brightly coloured paper off the table. He skimmed over the wobbly writing on the front of the card. “Whose birthday is it?” 

Louie looked up from his coloring book.  “It’s for Uncle Scrooge. We’re making it for him ‘cause his sisters are dead and he never gets any cards.” 

Gladstone paused. “...That’s nice of you.” He forced a smile. “Hey, maybe you could let me sign the card, too. Then I could get out of having to make one myself.” 

His little cousin snatched the card from his hands. “No way.” He stuck out his tongue. “‘Sides, he’s not  _ your  _ uncle. It says ‘Uncle Scrooge’ inside.” 

“You got me there.” Gladstone ruffled Louie’s feathers. 

Louie ducked away from his hand. “Hey, Gladdy?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you tell us another story about Uncle Scrooge and Uncle Donald and Ma?” 

Gladstone tugged at his collar. “I dunno. I think I’ve told them all,” he lied.

Louie hummed in thought. “Well, you could tell the one about the hidden temple in the Amazon again. Dewey likes that one best, so he wouldn’t mind. And Huey’s always reading the same books over and over, so he won’t either.” He tugged at Gladstone’s sleeve. 

Gladstone glanced at the clock. “When did Grandma say she’s coming back?” 

“Eight. She’s coming back at eight.” Louie said. 

“Tell you what. You don’t mention it to Gran, and I’ll tell you about the time they went to Wales looking for evidence of King Arthur.” 

Louie nodded furiously. “I won’t tell. Cross my heart.” He drew an ‘x’ over the right side of his chest with his finger. 

Gladstone, chuckling, nudged Louie’s hand to the left. “Go get your brothers.” 

///

Scrooge McDuck sat in his study, staring at a single envelope of unclear origin in the centre of his desk. Presumably, it had been left for him by Beakley. The address lines were in straight, neat lettering; the penmanship struck him as familiar somehow. Perhaps a forgotten employee, or shareholder--but then, Beakley brought only personal mail directly to the study. Not that he received much of it. 

He opened his desk drawer, fumbled around a moment for a letter opener, and came up with what he wanted. Carefully, he slit the top of the envelope open, and removed the letter--which was written on green construction paper. 

Scrooge squinted at the unsteady scrawl: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” it read, in multicolour. A crude drawing beneath depicted what was either a top hat or a birthday cake, adorned with a stripe of gold glitter. 

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not my blasted birthday,” he muttered to himself, turning to throw the thing in the trash. As he moved, the card fluttered open in his hand. In the same rainbow letters, there was another message within: “FOR UNCLE SCROOGE FROM HUEY DEWEY + LOUIE”. A lopsided heart, looking more like a half-deflated balloon, took up the rest of the page. Scrooge’s hand hovered over the wastebasket for a moment longer, and then, swiftly, he shut both the card and the letter opener in his bottom drawer. 

That part of his life was long gone. 


End file.
